A Massachusetts prosecutor has promised to assessment all circumstances dealt with by police Officer John Donnelly after a HuffPost report uncovered Donnelly’s function in planning the lethal 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Middlesex County District Lawyer Marina Ryan introduced Friday that her workplace is now “totally reviewing any pending or closed circumstances” wherein Donnelly, a patrolman in Woburn, Massachusetts, was concerned.
“We will probably be issuing a discovering discover disclosing this matter to protection counsel on these circumstances,” Ryan mentioned in a assertion. “That discover has already been added to our publicly accessible record of officers topic to exculpatory proof disclosure.”
On Thursday, HuffPost revealed a report detailing how Donnelly, 33, was amongst a whole lot of white supremacists who descended on Charlottesville in August 2017 for a “Unite the Proper” rally, terrorizing the city whereas chanting slogans reminiscent of “Jews is not going to substitute us” and violently attacking counterprotesters. The bloody weekend culminated with a neo-Nazi driving his automotive right into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Donnelly attended the rally as a bodyguard for Richard Spencer, a outstanding white supremacist. Leaked chat logs from a neo-Nazi Discord server present Donnelly performed an integral half in planning the weekend’s occasions.
The messages Donnelly posted on Discord present he might have belonged to the white supremacist group Id Evropa. His messages had been additionally filled with racist and antisemitic slurs, and at instances they advocated violence towards leftists and minorities.
After attending the Charlottesville rally, Donnelly returned to Woburn, the place he continued to be a police officer for the subsequent 5 years.
HuffPost’s report was based mostly on analysis by a collective of antifascist researchers referred to as Ignite the Proper.
“We're conscious about the best way wherein these allegations tear on the cloth of belief which exists between communities and the police departments which serve them,” District Lawyer Ryan mentioned in her assertion.
The New England Innocence Venture, a civil rights group devoted to stopping and correcting wrongful convictions, referred to as on the district legal professional to go additional than simply reviewing Donnelly’s circumstances.
“Each case this officer touched ought to be dismissed, each conviction vacated,” the group mentioned in a assertion on Twitter. “There is no such thing as a integrity in a system that depends on his credibility, judgment, or equity. Nothing he has mentioned or accomplished within the job may be ample to deliver legal penalties to another person.”
Donnelly, the New England Innocence Venture added, is probably going an indication of a extra systemic downside within the Woburn Police Division.
“This white supremacist officer had companions, supervisors, & trainers,” the group mentioned. “If he made arrests, prosecutors and judges relied on his experiences and testimony. But, NONE of those individuals acknowledged and uncovered him; they enabled him to be able of energy over our group.”
In anticipation of HuffPost’s report on Thursday, the Woburn Police Division suspended Donnelly pending an investigation.
“The Charlottesville rally is a darkish second in our historical past, and deeply disturbing,” Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin mentioned in an announcement. “The Metropolis of Woburn is taking these allegations severely by investigating the incident totally, and I'll transfer to terminate Officer Donnelly if the investigation concludes that the allegations are correct.”
Donnelly was not solely a cop; he was additionally the president of a “again the blue” nonprofit referred to as Irish Angel, which raised cash for regulation enforcement causes. He was an award-winning actual property agent within the Boston space.
Irish Angel instructed HuffPost on Thursday that Donnelly had been eliminated as president of the group.
Century 21, the actual property company for which Donnelly labored, confirmed on Friday that Donnelly had been fired.
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